1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for separating the shoot tips of sugar-cane plants for multi-row sugar-cane harvesting machines.
2. Background Information
There is no good reason for recovering the plant tips of sugar-cane plants because of their low sugar content, and they would simply obstruct the wind-cleaning zone for the chopped sugar-containing cane portions.
A device of this type, a so-called "topper", is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,569. This device consists of an inclined plate which projects from the machine frame at an appropriate height and on the underside of which are mounted two pairs of rotating knife blades. These comminute the plant tips and scatter the fragments on all sides, even into the stock still standing, this being undesirable.
A two-row topper is also known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,705,481. In this, the plant tips are not comminuted, but are each cut off by a cutting disc. Endless pronged chains arranged in a V-shaped manner serve as feed arrangements. This device is placed directly onto the V-shaped cutting fore-structure of the harvester. The plant tips are thus cut off only when the plant as a whole has already been detached from the root and picked up by the harvester. A transporting away of the cut-off shoot tips is not described. They obviously fall individually onto the ground surface already cropped in this instance and the machine drives over them.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,596,447 makes known a topper for a plant row, which works with two interacting cutting discs and with two endless delivery chains arranged in a V-shaped manner. The cutting discs carry superstructures in the form of hollow cylinders, each with six radial bars which are attached in a star-shaped manner and which convey the cut-off plant tips rearwards.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 3,462,927 shows a topper for a single-row machine, two interacting pronged discs being provided as a delivery arrangement and the cutting arrangement being a disc which is equipped with triangular knives on the circumference and which overlaps the pronged discs.